BYOL: What Millennials Can Teach Us About Self-Development

Editor's Notes

1. BYOL: Bring Your Own Learning What Millennials Can Teach Us About Self-Development   Do you ever notice how some colleagues are always seemingly on top of what’s happening in the industry and have a grasp of the latest trends, skills, and technologies? They’re not at all intimidated by taking on new tasks and roles that require learning a new set of skills. Wouldn’t you like to be more like that?   Taking ownership for and driving their own development seems second nature for some, especially many of our Millennials, who’ve grown up with a lifelong, bring-your-own learning mindset and have been wired in from day one. There is much the rest of us can learn from them, especially in terms of infusing our day-to-day lives with micro-learning opportunities, getting more learning out of our work experiences, building and leveraging our development networks, and capitalizing on the vibrant and exponentially growing mega-library that is the internet. Coming out of this session, you also will be able to BYOL and take greater control of your own development.   -----o0o-----   Materials will include a slide presentation that walks through examples of individuals and what they did to develop their skills and grow their careers, leveraging resources outside of their employer. We’ll then ask participants to apply these techniques to identify 1-3 specific actions they can take.
2. Boomers live to work; Gen-Xers work to live; Millenials for fun.
3. Meet Mia. You might call her a news junky, though she never reads a newspaper or watches the news on TV. She has news apps on her smartphone and follows newsfeeds from her favorite sources on Twitter, including a number of blogs and media outlets.
4. Meet Mia. You might call her a news junky, though she never reads a newspaper or watches the news on TV. She has news apps on her smartphone and follows newsfeeds from her favorite sources on Twitter, including a number of blogs and media outlets.
5. As you can see here, the learning landscape is broad and addresses many of the technical, interpersonal, and leadership skills that are so much in demand today.
6. We are entering an age of content abundance, where learning content is cheaper—much of it free—and more widely available than ever before…and it is getting cheaper and more accessible still. Universities and private companies are making their content more widely available, often for free. Even technical content is increasingly being made available through industry associations and trade groups. In the case of learning professionals, eLearning Guild, ATD, HR.com, and SHRM are just a few of the organizations providing professional development content resources. It is becoming increasingly difficult to justify building new content, except in the case of job-specific and company-specific training content. We face a scarcity of time in the workplace. People are over-stretched and under-skilled, so they are unable to keep up with the demands of today’s workplace, let alone go searching for the right content at the point of need. This gap between content abundance and time scarcity is really the key issue driving professional development today. Those individuals who know how to bridge this gap and have the motivation to do it are benefitting tremendously, while those who are not able or who are complacent about it are increasingly being left behind.
7. Where are there opportunities in your schedule for some micro learning? What sources of content
8. Millenials like to crowdsource things, so why not do it with mentors. Rather than just having one lifelong mentor, millennials leverage a large network of colleagues, friends, relatives, and connections to get what they need. Though some relationships can have breadth and depth, others involve more situational and transactional forms of mentoring.
9. Millenials tend to be socially conscious and get a lot of satisfaction out of volunteer opportunities. Combining volunteering interests with networking and mentoring can be a great way to kill multiple birds with one stone.
10. Where are there opportunities in your schedule for some micro learning? What sources of content
11. Where are there opportunities in your schedule for some micro learning? What sources of content
12. Surveys tell us that millennials crave more feedback and more often than previous generations. It does beg the question: Is it feedback they seek or just praise? Regardless, actively seeking out feedback is critical in professional development because it enables us to self-correct our attitude, behavior, and knowledge. Self-correction, however, only happens if in addition to seeking feedback, we accept it as the gift it is, reflect on it, and make adjustments based on it.
13. Where are there opportunities in your schedule for some micro learning? What sources of content
14. Where are there opportunities in your schedule for some micro learning? What sources of content